Walking with God.....And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Saturday, November 03, 2007

The Wrath of God?

Unfortunately I saw the piece on 20/20 this week interviewing Shirley Phelps about the Westboro lawsuit. It was disgustingly awful to watch children singing "God Hates the World and All Her People."

Admittedly this particular group is extreme fringe. However I feel that same disappointment when I read websites, blogs, and comments that portray God as hateful and angry. I believe a message that heavily emphasizes judgment and wrath misrepresents God.

On a certain website, concerning the gospel as presented by John MacArthur, Doug Pagitt was quoted to say: "I do not say "perverted" lightly, either. I really think what he communicates is so distant from the message of the Bible that it is dangerously harmful to people."

It is harmful if the message portrayed is so far from the truth of who God is that it repels people. When people preach a narrow gospel of an angry and vindictive God, they don't seem to realize that they project their own anger and hatred onto God.

I believe it was Anne Lamott who said, "You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

Sometimes I wonder about why people hang onto this angry version of God. They seem afraid to believe in God's kindness, love, and mercy. Kind of like it's too good to be true.

It's not just the extremists. I think most of us have a small piece of the angry God that we've struggled to let go of, the picture of God we imagine when we are feeling ashamed or unworthy - the disapproving father, the harsh taskmaster, the unsatisfied perfectionist.

What if we are transformed by love instead of by law?

Legalism requires the harsh language of sin, judgment, and wrath. But what if God is completely confident in the power of love to transform a heart without threats and intimidation? Of course, living that way would require faith in the transforming power of God's love instead of trusting in control.

Personally, I think the greatest revelation that we, individually and as the church, will have is a growing revelation of God's love. His love has the power to redeem and restore in a way that judgment and condemnation never can. I don't think we, the church, have yet come close to imagining or expressing the depths of God's love.

Can His love be taken to an extreme? I don't think so. What do you think?

I asked a question on my blog last week that was inspired by thoughts such as these. I was seeking to find out what the first thing people thought of when they heard the word 'gospel.' I asked what IS the 'good news?'

I wondered if anyone would say 'salvation from Hell' or 'you're going to Heaven,' or something like that.

I didn't get any answers such as those, mostly because I don't have many readers. The answers I got were on par with what I think the gospel IS about - God's love.

Sorry this has been kind of rambling. Great post as always and great questions. Keep 'em coming.

What I struggle with is that many people who hold to an narrowly wrathful God (and I say narrow in respect to the exclusion of His other attribute and expressions, as wrath is clearly one) is that many will tell you they DO believe God is entirely loving within His wrath. Arguing love with them is fruitless, because they approach it with an entirely different set of presuppositions.

Perhaps we need to model the kind of extreme love we talk about in God's nature as best we can and hope that it speaks the loudest in favour of that reality.

I think this is why the church has been, by and large, ineffective. Most churches say "God loves you differently than anyone you have ever known. He is different than man because he loves you unconditionally".

Then they follow it up with, "but if you don't love him back in the proper way, he will torture you beyond belief till the end of time".

GraceGreat post. I have been thinking about this a lot. I have such a distorted view of God and his love for me. I am learning about his love. The thing I hate to is the messages which continue to emphasize that God is an angry God and he is going to strike your bod with a lightning rod. A local church here has a sign up which reads "Keep using my name in vain and I will make rush hour longer" God. I want to run over the sign. I keep thinking of all the poor people who are stuck in traffic because I sin and not because their are too many freaking people on the road all heading to one place at the same time. To answer your question. I don't think we could ever go to such an extreme on the love of God. I don't think we would know how to go that far.

This is interesting because this discussion reiterates to some degree a conversation that A. (wife) and I have been having as a result of our present reading in Matthew; What did the listeners of Jesus understand to be the "good news of the Kingdom of Heaven"?

I believe that the depths of God's love are so beyond our imagination. It's not that God's love can be taken to an extreme, God's love is the extreme, if we could only begin to realize that love. Imagine the love revolution.

The bible tells us that God is love - it is a given (for most of us at least!) But I think the question we perhaps need to ask is "What does the love of God look like?" There are parts of the love of God that are angry, disciplining, sad and dissapointed by our brokenness.

There are some branches of the church where they teach that God is like a giant cosmic teddy bear. Where the love of God is a soppy sentimental kind of love - which I believe is a lie at least as cruel as the one of the eternally angry God.

kay,I have your blog added to my reader. Seeing the friends that you have at your blog, it doesn't surprise me that they have a fuller understanding of the gospel. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.

jamie,The misunderstanding about God's wrath is usually about where that wrath is focused (ie God hates the world and all it's people?).

The church has come to a point where I believe modeling love will be necessary to validate the message we claim.

I've let the blog housekeeping slide around here because I've been working on a wordpress blog. I'm still undecided about making the switch.

Steve,Well said. The misrepresentation of the gospel and the misunderstanding of the basic terms of Scripture is something that has been on my mind a lot recently also. It seems like as a whole, the church has been a poor representation of the message we were entrusted to carry to the world.

Andrew,Good point. I think that twist comes from substituting a gospel of salvation for the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom has such an entirely different focus. Although salvation is still an important aspect, it encompasses an ongoing journey rather than fire insurance.

Jeff,It seems that one of the strengths of the emerging/missional conversation is the willingness to look at how we are presenting the gospel and what affect our message has on others.

jen,You make such a good point. I think that growing in our personal understanding of God's love is what enables us to share and be a witness of God's goodness and kindness to those we meet. If we haven't begun to experience that yet, it is difficult to share with others.

volkmar,Interesting question. I believe at the time, the listeners viewed the kingdom through a more political lens. They also had to adjust their misperceptions in order to understand the nature of the kingdom Jesus described.

I have enjoyed the things that I've read by Manning. A couple of authors that come to mind who also seem to emphasize God's love are Graham Cooke and Rob Bell. I'm sure there are many others.

Eric,Perfect answer. God's love is extreme, and it is our realization of it that is incomplete.

Brent,Knowing about God's love and experiencing it as a reality are entirely different. I don't believe that one can experience His love and then present Him as harsh and cruel.

Cosmic teddy bear? No.

However, it is sad that so very few people trust in the extent of His kindness and goodness. Therein is the power to change lives.

I decided to change my previous comment.Here goes:In looking at your second to last question "Can His love be taken to an extreme?" I would answer, NO! It is because his love for us is so extreme that Jesus died to take his wrath against sin. (He does have wrath against sin and it is why the message of repentance and turning to Christ and the atonement he offers is preached in the first place.) Dietrich Bonhoeffer notes: “God’s vengeance did not strike sinners, but the one sinless man who stood in the sinners’ place, Jesus Christ the Son of God. He stilled God’s wrath toward sin and prayed ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do!’ That was the end of all phony thoughts about the love of God that do not take sin seriously. God hates sin and redirects his enemies to the only righteous one, and this one asks forgiveness for them.”

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"We sense that something magnificent is afoot. We are intrigued by the chaos. We are willing to risk significant change in order to create local expressions of the kingdom of God that are burning with missional passion and practice. We want to explore the meaning of the chaos, the vision of a preferred future, the challenge of being "church."
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